Attitudes towards necromancy

Here's the thing: If people could be brought back to life, other people would have to die. There's only so many souls to go 'round. So yeah, fuck that shit.

My name is Cu Chulainn. Beside the raging sea I am left to moan. Sorrow I am, for I brought down my only son.

I wonder if Buddhism's soul splitting implies that souls multiply...

I know it can lead to all those people saying they were on the Titanic potentially being correct...

edited 7th Jul '11 11:03:35 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

The morality of necromancy is completely dependent on a few factors:

• what is the effect on the person who brings people back? Do they become corrupt from meddling with death, ala Dresden Files? Or is it simply another spell which is cast, like throwing a ball of flame or moving water around?

• What does the revived remember? Do they have their memories? Are they even Sapient? Or even still, are they Sentient? Are they capable of speech?

• What is required to cast the spell? A few magic words and a bit of will? A magic circle and the body of the deceased? Or a sacrifice of a living person?

• Does it revive the body? The mind? Do people come back as zombies? or ghosts?

• Is there a condition by which the creations are made? EG a constant input of will from the creator, an audio input, a connection to the creator? Or is there Ontological Inertia, IE They remain even if the caster dies.

Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

Is it necessary for currently living people to die, or perhaps there simply won't be any new people born? If it's the latter, then this one does not see much trouble.

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

Is one's soul created afresh and new from ex nihilo, or is this life just one part of the endless circle of death and rebirth? That I wonder.

hashtagsarestupid

Being an agnostic, I don't have to worry about these problems.

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

I once heard a story about necromancy that said that when someone is raised from the dead, they are mute because they are not allowed to speak of what lies beyond the grave.

If that would hold true in a hypothetical universe, then necromancy's ability for solving murders and studying dead languages and the like might be greatly reduced. Unless we could teach the undead sign language... after all, the rule did only say that they could not "speak"...

Would you kindly click my dragons?

Or they could write it down.

That's true, but they'd probably need to learn a sign language too if they wanted to rejoin society. If they don't learn some kind of sign language then they'll basically be like the emo kid from Little Miss Sunshine.

Would you kindly click my dragons?

If there's anything that Fantasy and Sci-Fi have taught me about raising the dead, it's that there is always some sort of horrible side effect. Either the dead person comes back as a soulless killing machine, or the person raising them mutates into a giant spider-demon, or you have to kill somebody else in order to make it work. Either way it doesn't seem like a good idea.

As Frederick Frankenstein said, "I am not interested in death! The only thing that interests me is the preservation of life! <Stabs self in leg>

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

But how much of that is just Sour Grapes?

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

For the sake of argument, imagine what the ability to raise the dead would do for the military or police. Imagine, the police are hunting a wanted criminal. They find him hiding out and blow his brains out and take the body into custody. Then they resurrect him for his trial.

At the trial he is found guilty and sentenced to death. For six months. Then brought back to life after having served his time.

Or what about people who decide to spend a year dead for tax reasons? Man that would mess with our revenue system.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.

Wonder if anyone else here has read The Age of the Pussyfoot. In the story, most forms of death can be treated at cost, so murder has become a misdemeanor—even when committed against the poor who can't afford to be resurrected.

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful